Shadows
by sheppythevolus
Summary: Neric-centric season 6, everything is canon up to the end of 'Deep Trouble'. Callen and Sam are trapped in the sub leaving Eric, Nell, Kensi and Deeks scrambling to find a way to get them out safely.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: Hey everyone! If you were brought here by my oneshot series, you're in for something fairly different. This is going to be a coherent story, several of the oneshots will make it in here at some point or another. Takes place right after 5x24.**

**Sorry if Eric's POV is a bit hard to follow at times; I'm trying to write his internal monologue as something believable considering how he acts on the show. In order to contrast the two of them Nell is quite coherent – this is based on how she acts in the show despite the fact that she claimed to have 'borderline ADD' in the second season. Suggestions are welcome!**

**Summary: Neric-centric season 6. The series will feature the entire team to varying extents, after a great deal of deliberation I have decided to split the story up quite a bit, I'll keep the updates to everything but the oneshot series chronological in terms of the AU. **

* * *

"Callen, Sam, do you hear me?!" Kensi called out.

"Sam!" Eric yelled into his headset, knowing full well it was useless. The last thing they would hear from the two agents was gunshots echoing in a submarine, and this time he couldn't shake the cold feeling crawling up his spine. _A submarine, why of all things was it a submarine? _"Kensi, Deeks, did you see anything?"

He looked over to Granger for guidance and saw the man's stony gaze fixed on the map he had posted on the main screen hours ago.

"No." Deeks replied after a pregnant pause. "Nothing, not even a wake. The moors are cut, so I guess they left in a hurry."

"The coast guard, harbormaster and the navy are aware and mobilizing as we speak." Granger interjected coolly. "But, we still need to figure out where they're headed."

"Yeah, got it." Eric replied, absent mindedly swiping through information on his tablet. He found himself focusing on his partner; she stood right next to him paralyzed for a moment before something clicked in her brain. "I'll piece together what I can from what we heard." Nell announced, rushing to a computer on the other side of the room.

"Agents Deeks and Blye, get back here. Now." Granger rumbled.

"We can't just slink back! We are closer than anyone else right now, we have to do something!"

When Marty said that, Eric and Nell turned to see Granger's reaction. After a short moment of disgruntled bewilderment the man took a couple heavy steps toward the screen as if he were talking directly to the detective. "Did you bring your swim trunks, Deeks?" The man growled. "How do you expect to follow a submarine? Get back here. Don't make me ask twice."

"On our way." Kensi responded through gritted teeth, though Eric could tell even without being in the same room that she had interrupted Deeks who had some very choice words for the Assistant Director.

Granger stopped a moment before storming out; looking down at Nell as if he was trying to coax her to look him in the eye but, she turned her gaze back to the computer. "Stay focused you two, be ready for a brief in twenty." He commanded as he stormed out.

For a moment after the assistant director left, Eric just watched his partner work as she pulled a pair of headphones over her head and skipped through the audio log.

When he realized what had just transpired Eric couldn't endure staying seated any longer, his restless legs demanded some kind of motion so he placated them by pacing – even though he knew it drove Nell crazy. It was all wrong, they should have never gone in the sub – one of them should have stayed on the surface – and why are his legs so itchy? Deeks and Kensi were too late to save them and his favorite pair of shorts were suddenly driving him crazy. Everything he tried to string together just evaporated in his mind as he tried to turn it into a coherent thought. _Who was shooting at them and why? What did it have to do with the Darlington? _He had to focus, he knew he had to focus but it was impossible. Sam and G were depending on him but they didn't have anything to go on. Michael Wilson was in surgery for shrapnel related injuries, there wasn't a single thing out of the ordinary in the financials of the boatyard and Sam and G were going to die if he couldn't think of a way to save them.

There wasn't a program he had been saving for such an occasion, or a contact that could be of any use – he didn't even have an idea ready because something like this wasn't supposed to happen! What kind of _senior agents _walk blindly into a steel tube with one entrance? How could they have let themselves get cornered like this?

He balked at himself for judging them so harshly before turning to his partner. "Nell." He said softly. She was wearing headphones, completely oblivious of him and tried for a moment to assure himself; after all, they had found smaller needles in bigger haystacks before.

"Nell!" He repeated, louder this time. He nudged her shoulder and she jumped, turning to him so fast the headphones slid off her head.

"What?" She asked, a little too loudly.

"Sorry." He replied, shying away from her. _Let her work. _He told himself. _We need to know what they said and she can't figure that out if you interrupt her._

"Focus, Eric."

"Yeah." He looked back at his tablet, studying the face of the kid Sam and G had apprehended, Martinez. "What if they don't have twenty minutes?"

"Eric."

"We don't know what's happening, Nell. They are –"

"_Eric._" Nell persisted.

"What?"

"They're going to be okay. Subs are built like tanks, and Sam is a SEAL." She breathed. "They're going to be okay."

Maybe it was his imagination but, it sure sounded like she was trying to convince herself. "Yeah."

It was like she saw the thought cross his mind, she met his eyes again and reassured him. "Don't give up on them."

"I'm not… it's just…" The look on her face was comforting, as it always was. The same familiar gaze they had shared on a hundred other cases; a hundred other fires, a hundred other life or death situations that they had helped the team out of.

"I know."

He looked down at his tablet, wondering how the kid ended up involved in something like this. The kid probably never questioned where the drugs came from or how they got into his backpack. "We're looking at a tag team effort, both the Brotherhood and the cartel combining their shipments to fill a sub that big. Do you think they had a chance to make a shipment yet?"

"It's not impossible. Anderson said they would release his wife when they finished constructing and testing the sub, and that if he ever wanted to see her again he should make sure it works or it would be her tomb." She recited rigidly, it usually reassured him, watching her reason through the tips but, he couldn't see a trace of relief on her face.

"They wouldn't trust him to do that, would they? Risk a billion dollars of product like that?"

"It isn't worth a billion until it they get it here. Besides, they could have tested it anywhere, at any time. They've had all the pieces for almost a month, Eric."

"Okay, so we may have an influx of a few tons of cocaine, at least we could figure out who the sellers are, right?"

"Yeah, try getting in contact with the DEA, see if they have any kind of lead." She suggested, turning her attention back toward the audio log on her PC.

_"__Eric, w- goi- ne- om odd."_

_"__Callen, come again?"_

_"__You're breaking up!"_

_"__Er -onna ne- b- wad."_

_"__Agent Callen."_

She stopped the recording. _Eric we going to need… _"Om odd. Bo wad." She said to herself, repeating the fragments over and over. "Bom wad… Bomb squad!" She yelled.

"What?" Eric almost shouted, nearly dropping his tablet when she shot upward from her seat.

"Bomb squad. They wanted a bomb squad. It isn't a drug transport… it's a _torpedo_."

"With Callen and Sam trapped onboard."

* * *

When Kensi walked into the building, Deeks felt the need to say something. "Kensi, Granger said head back, what are you doing?"

"I'm not leaving them, we couldn't have missed them by more than a few minutes but if we go back to base we may as well just give up." Her voice echoed her hurried motions, pushing things across shelves, pausing on anything with writing on it.

Instead of arguing, as he probably should, Deeks started rummaging through everything on the table. There was a thick layer of the expected refuse, munchies and beer cans but, no sign of anything hinting at the existence of a submarine on their dock. There was a tablet hidden under a chip bag.

"Got something." Deeks announced, lifting the tablet off the table and clicking it on. It was a gesture unlock, which made him grin inwardly. He held the screen below a light and saw the oily trace of fingers on the glass; on the part of the screen with the gesture unlock he saw the remnants of the letter 'N' on the glass. On the second try he got the direction right.

"What's that?"

"I guess it belonged to one of the drug runners. Looks like... Akmal Haan." He replied, navigating through the email, chat and internet browser history before putting the tablet down and grabbing his phone. "Call Eric, tell him I'm going to tether a suspect's tablet to my phone, he should be able to access its contents."

"Right." She complied, pulling out here phone and hitting the speed dial for Eric.

Marty continued flicking through the tablet's contents, not seeing a whole lot of interest. The chat seemed to be tethered to a SMS service.

"Eric, Deeks is tethering a tablet we found, see what you can get off it."

Deeks heard a nearly inaudible confirmation from the technical operator only a few seconds before he noticed a warning prompt on the tablet.

_Remote access requested… … … … …_

_Remote access acquired._

With that a search overlay appeared onscreen and he watched Eric work his magic for a moment before moving on. Kensi had become fixated on a weathered old binder on the other side of the room. It was stacked on a shelf with a bunch of manila envelopes and loose paper. When he got a glimpse of it over her shoulder he noticed that the contents looked a lot like a ledger.

"What do you got there, Kens?" He asked while making his way around the table.

She opened the binder wider so he could see, the column titles weren't English but it looked like account holder; payment date, payment amount; comments. "Payment records. The last actual record is from 2012 – wasn't this place in business until the middle of last year?"

"Yeah, yeah they were. I guess they got a payment that made them stop worrying about keeping track?"

"Not by the looks of this place, unless all they bought was the TV and the console."

"And the sub."

"I don't think this place is associated with the brotherhood; it's too…"

"Innocuous? That may be the point."

"Yeah. You might –" she stopped midsentence and pulled out her phone. "Find anything, Eric?" – "Yeah that makes sense." – "Alright, well it was worth a try."

"Nothing?" Deeks asked, deflated.

"Nothing."

"Well, we could move our search out of this room - maybe that will help."

* * *

For a moment the two agents just stared at each other; no jokes, no anecdotes, nothing but palpable dread as they both came to the same realization – they were trapped. The ominous rumbling of the sub's engine was louder than the Challenger at full tilt even from the front of the vessel, the vibration seemed to only heighten the tension in the air of the compartment. Sam turned away and patted the door, feeling along the seam methodically, probably hoping for a release switch or something familiar from his time on military subs. It became clear very quickly to both agents that this was not the case.

"Can you open it?" Callen asked from over his partner's shoulder.

"There's no latch."

"Damn. Okay, uh, maybe there's a release?" Callen replied, eyeing the walls near the hatch.

"Even if there is, we don't want to go up there." The SEAL replied warily, his eyes fixed on the hinges of the door.

"Yeah, but we will have to eventually." G responded, turning slightly and eyeing the rest of the room. His eyes fixed on a conduit running along the wall of the sub.

"No." Sam responded before Callen even had the chance to ask.

"They will have an oxygen tank, they may be drug runners but they don't want to have to surface in the case of a malfunction any more than the military does."

"That's it? That's what you're going on?"

"That's all we've got." G approached the conduit, stopping before he reached it to map out his surroundings first. The conduit lead to what looked like a breaker box but, it had none of the caution markings of a military vessel. The box was unlocked, showing a number of unlabeled small switches and a single labeled switch at the top titled 'MAIN'.

Callen took a minute to look around. There should be emergency lighting even with main power cut but, he didn't want to risk not knowing where he was. "What else we got? This second pipe is a fuel line, I'm guessing we don't want to cut that."

"Right, not a nuclear sub." The SEAL paused, pondering the situation. "Everything overhead is hydraulics for the elevators and on this side I got another fuel line, ballast water and –"

"Ballast water?"

"Yeah, a sub like this will need a ballast tank in the front and aft to control the pitch. They probably pipe water between them."

"Do you think there is manual ballast control somewhere in here?"

"I don't see it but, it's not impossible. The only other line over here is 'waste water'."

"Don't even think of cutting that." G joked, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

"Hah."

"Alright, sure your footing, I'm gonna flip it." He announced, reaching for the junction box. He watched his partner look around the room once more before he flipped the heavy switch. With a loud click the overhead lights immediately went out and the airflow from the vents died down.

* * *

"We have two agents stuck in your sub, probably trapped in one of the compartments. How can they get out?" Eric spoke into his headset, tapping Nell into the call halfway through his question. It was hard to coax himself into a less panicked state for the sake of calling the man but, somehow he managed.

"What do you mean trapped? Is it still moored?" Charles responded, just from his voice Eric could tell the man was simultaneously flustered and very wary of being overheard. The voices in the background of his call tapered off into the distance as the man pushed his way through a few sets of doors, presumably away from prying ears.

Before Eric had the chance to deny the civilian any specific information, Nell interjected. "It's gone. We don't know where it is."

"Are they alone? Do you know which compartment?"

Eric had to restrain himself from telling Charles the whole truth. It was a tightrope walk every time a federal agent needed advice from a civilian. Even if Charles could be of more help if the man knew everything, they couldn't risk information on the subject leaking out – intentionally or otherwise.

"No, they uh, they aren't alone. How many compartments are there?"

"Three, though I assume they aren't in the cockpit or we wouldn't be having this conversation." He responded quickly.

"What are the other two?"

"Ballast and cargo. Again, if they were in the ballast compartment they would surely have surfaced by now, you'd have called the coast guard instead of me and we wouldn't be having this conversation."

Eric had to give the man some credit for being pragmatic at a time like this. "So they are in the cargo compartment. What's in there?"

"Aside from the hold, that's also where the power and fuel lines run from the battery and fuel tank in the hold to the engine, it is at the bow."

"Okay, so just cut the power and they can't guide the sub anymore?"

"No. I mean, yes but, the guidance system itself is entirely contained on a computer with a backup power source that can last weeks, steering input is wireless and is powered by an alternator – sort of like power steering."

"You're saying you designed it to be piloted remotely?" Eric asked pointedly.

"I only did what they asked! I had no idea they would…" He trailed off as his breathing grew more exacerbated.

Eric paused for a moment while the man calmed down. It was hard not to sympathize, the man had only just got the news about his wife and they already needed his help to save two agents – Eric couldn't believe he almost told him about all the lives at stake. The Brotherhood had apparently asked him to design it to be drivable without main power; it wasn't like he would have been able to negotiate.

"It would shut down the oxygen generators, inertial guidance and the electronic ballast control. They will need GPS feedback at regular intervals, probably every few minutes or else risk going off course."

Eric muted the call. "And they will be headed for the Darlington."

"Okay, uh…" She trailed off, tapping something into her tablet. "The Darlington is headed to port at Hueneme; just over seventy nautical miles from the boatyard."

"I thought you said it had been at sea for three weeks!"

"Emergency recall, something about their engineer being compromised." She responded curtly, Eric saw the frustration in her face and as he turned back toward the map of LA he heard her quietly add. "Sorry."

Eric unmuted the call. "What speed is your sub capable of?"

"Forty nauts."

"Thank you." Eric replied before unceremoniously hanging up. "We have just under two hours to find a series of pings that looks like it is heading for a navy ship."

"Plotting the course from the shipyard now, let's hope they are taking the most direct route."

"I'll talk to Granger, hopefully he can get our sub moving in the same direction, should buy us some time. Let's just hope they managed to cut the power."

* * *

"So, now what wise guy?" Sam snapped, still holding onto the bulkhead. Apparently when G flipped the switch he killed everything, even the emergency lighting, assuming a drug hauling ship would even have a use for such a thing.

Before responding G looked around the nearly pitch black compartment; a green standby light next to the switch he had just flipped appeared to be the only source of light that remained. He reached into his pocket and flipped open his multitool with one hand while he hit the flashlight function on his phone, shining it toward the hold. His eyes locked on the hinges he had to remove, confirming his earlier observation that they were cheap, simple barrel hinges – the pivot on the bottom hinge wasn't even driven in all the way when they built the sub.

"Good old civilian quality construction." He mused.

On the other side of the compartment he heard Sam unholster his sidearm, when G looked over he saw his partner's aim trained on the door to the cockpit, holding his phone against the barrel with his left hand. The SEAL glanced back at the light Callen was shining in his direction and nodded. "As punishment for making me come in here, I'll keep watch."

Callen didn't waste time getting to work on the hinges on the hold's door. He placed his phone on the ground below the door, shining the light upward at the hinge. The pin was wedged tight but, using a wrench he found as a hammer and alternating between twisting and pulling from the other side with the pliers on his multitool he managed to get the first hinge unpinned.

"One down." He announced.

"Yeah, that's great. Why aren't they trying to get in here and restore power? Don't they need navigation?"

"You make that sound like a bad –" Callen paused when he smacked the second pin out of the hinge. "Thing."

"I'm just not comfortable waiting. We should at least be trying to anticipate their next move."

"Maybe their next move is to open the hatch and swim away because they're afraid of the dark?" Callen joked.

With the hinges off, G managed to bend the padlock off using the width of the door as leverage. The iron eyelet of the hasp warped and snapped, leaving the door to the hold wide open.

"They're going to regret trapping us back here." G mused as he started to pull out the fertilizer, one bag at a time. The engine was obviously in the back of the ship so the only logical conclusion as to why there were fuel lines running along the walls was because there was a fuel tanks in the hold with all the fertilizer. He intended to make sure the fuel pumps stopped working. Even if it meant never making it to the surface, they weren't going to make it to the Darlington – not if he had anything to say about it.

* * *

"So, I don't even know what we're looking for anymore, Fern." Deeks admitted.

"Anything, Deeks. Anything that looks even remotely related to that sub or anything on it." Kensi replied, her tone reflecting the panicked motions of someone who realized they were running out of time.

"Well, I see a lot of open space that could have at one point been used to store drugs until they could move it into the sub." It was a lousy time to try and crack a joke but, timing was never exactly his thing.

She reacted as he probably should have expected, spinning around to face him before almost yelling. "Just shut up. If you aren't going to take this seriously then just –"

"Sorry. I'm just trying to keep calm here." He cut her off.

"It's supposed to be a drug transport but, if it ever was they cleaned this place out perfectly."

"Maybe it isn't that simple. Look at this." He turned his shoulders and moved to the side so that Kensi could see past him to the floor beneath a shelving unit. At first she seemed hopeful but, when she showed her the granules in his hand that he had been inspecting she began to share his confusion. The substance resembled white sand, the crystals were of random shape, odorless and too square to be crystal meth. "I spent some time in a narcotics rotation and I've never seen anything quite like this."

"Oh no." Kensi murmured. When Deeks looked up she was inches from his left side. "Damn. They aren't smuggling drugs."

"What is it?"

"It's fertilizer."

A door slammed in the distance, it sounded like the sound came from the other side of the building but it was difficult to be certain. Deeks looked behind them and shared an uneasy moment of silence with his partner before they both reached for their sidearms.

"We've got company."

* * *

**Author's Note: Woo! Aren't first chapters fun?**

**Also, in case you're wondering - reviews make authors happy :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note: I've been struggling with this chapter, balancing making Nell too dependent on him vs too… I don't know, immune? This is also delayed because I've been very sick for the last week or so.**

* * *

"This would have been so much easier five years ago." Nell groaned out of frustration. "There are literally a million GPS pings in LA every minute."

She had moved over to the island, since the GPS display was on the main screen. Somehow in only a couple minutes she had managed to make the data coherent – well, coherent compared to a daunting stream of longitude and latitude coordinates.

The points were being displaying in regular intervals as a countless number of pings all over western Los Angeles. The map refreshed every two seconds, thousands and thousands of red pings on all sides of the highlighted route from shipyard to Hueneme. The sheer volume of data was daunting and the fact that five new points on the map were highlighted every millisecond or so was making it nearly impossible to tell which pings were stationary and which were moving.

"How many are over water?" He asked, looking more closely at the bay area between the boatyard and Hueneme. At least a couple hundred by his guess, most of which appeared to be moving.

"More than there should be!" She responded, clearly flustered. "Marker buoys, boats, surfers, wildlife tags, lost phones – it's all the same to this thing."

"It's a small sub, probably doesn't need more than fifteen feet of water at the minimum but, without navigation they probably aren't feeling that brave. Try isolating signals coming from between 30 and 1000 feet from shore."

"And if they still have navigation?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, Nell." Eric responded. "If the location changes by more than a few feet between refreshes make it display in a different color, so you can tell them apart."

An alert on his tablet diverted his attention from the GPS data, Granger had confirmation that a coast guard vessel nearby was diverting to the area. As Eric got ready to update the Assistant Director, he saw that Nell had already completed the modification he suggested; red dots were stationary, yellow dots were inconsistent, green were moving.

"There's too many!" She exclaimed, looking up at the roof and derailing his train of thought. He decided to postpone calling Granger for a moment while he walked up behind her.

"You're on the right track, get the topography and figure out which ones are in deep enough water." He assured her, putting an arm on her shoulder in the hopes that she would relax a bit.

"I can't do this." She muttered, turning her eyes down to her tablet again without acknowledging him.

"Yes you can." He replied, though it wasn't exactly what was on his mind. He knew they had this backward, he was supposed to be the technical operator, not her but, he was afraid. He was afraid that if he was in her place that he wouldn't be able to do it, and he knew it wasn't beyond her abilities. As he left her to work he couldn't help but wish he was a better motivational speaker – that he could borrow Hetty's ability to use a few words to make everything seem so attainable. Before he got two steps away he heard her raise her voice again.

"How have we not plotted the topography of the coast before now?" The frustration was heavy in her voice and punctuated by her pounding a closed fist against the island.

He stopped in his tracks and racked his brain for advice. She was trying to go from GPS coordinates to depths but, it would be easier to just use the display she already has with an underlay of the coast's topography so that she could make the matches visually. "Because the US Geological Survey did it for us, just use an underlay." Before he had a chance to walk over to her and explain she already knew what he was thinking, found the map he mentioned and was in the process of making it an underlay.

Deciding it was best to give her some space he turned his attention to his computer, sifting through his contacts for the assistant director. "Granger." Eric spoke into his earpiece, the dialer having connected almost instantly. "The Darlington is in danger, you need to get them to move it into deeper water right now."

He heard Granger take a heavy breath before responding, giving Eric a few seconds to eavesdrop on the familiar voices in the background of the call; it sounded like he was in the middle of a meeting. "Brief me."

"Nell went over the last audio we have of Callen and Sam, they asked for the bomb squad." When he mentioned her name she perked up, looking over to him and catching his glance. Even though her face was unreadable most of the time, he could tell she was panicking; over the years he had learned to spot a few nervous ticks and she was currently rubbing her fingers together.

Suddenly Granger's voice came back into focus. "-ubmarine?"

"Wha – I mean – could you repeat that?" He stammered, quickly spinning away from his partner in an attempt to concentrate.

Granger exhaled slowly before continuing in a grumble almost too low to hear. "The bomb squad for a submarine?"

"Yes. We think they intend to use it as a torpedo against the Darlington. We have devised a way to track it but it will take some time, in the meantime you need to get that sub into deeper water."

"Deeper?"

"It's not a military sub, Anderson said the maximum depth was 60 feet."

"I'll do what I can but, you should know that they are aware they're compromised. Protocol is to ignore comms."

"I'll do my best, sir."

"Anything else?"

"Not really, we're working on isolating the GPS signal, parsing though a coordinate feed with thousands of other antennas and trying to distinguish them based on vaguely quantifiable search parameters is time consuming."

"In English?"

"We're working on it. I'd better go."

"Yes."

He had to take a moment to adjust after the short conversation with Granger. The cold manners of the assistant director only added to the fact that he felt as if he was carrying the sub squarely on his shoulders. Fortunately that wasn't the case, at least not anymore. He spun around to look at where Nell had been sitting when he realized that she had left the room.

"Harry, where did she go?" He asked the Communications Technician on the far wall.

When Harry offered him a blank look and a shrug he spun on his heel and jogged out of Ops.

"Nell!" He called into the corridor. Before he even finished the syllable he saw her sitting with her back against the wall next to the door. He stopped and looked down at her a moment, she had her head buried in her arms and was hunched over. "Nell?"

"I just…" She croaked, as if her throat was too dry for her to speak. "Need a minute."

Without saying anything or even really thinking about it, Eric headed straight for the water cooler, both giving her a chance to sort herself out and anticipating that she would want water. When he made it to the cooler and reached for a cup he realized his hands were shaking, not the ordinary you're-never-going-to-be-a-surgeon shaking that he was used to but, actual tremors. He stared at them, trying to focus on breathing slower, focusing on simple things like the beating of his heart like Hetty had taught him in order to calm down but, it wasn't working. This wasn't one of those things you could reason away by saying do your best and everything will be fine - there wasn't going to be room for mistakes in the next two hours. With that in mind he grabbed the top of the cup dispenser and squeezed it as hard as he could trying to relieve the stress and instead he only felt more overwhelmed.

How many people were on the Darlington? Two hundred? Three? And that was to say nothing about Callen and Sam. All of their lives were riding on Nell and his ability to track a series of GPS pings in somewhat shallow water that looks like it's heading toward a sub that they may or may not be able to successfully locate or warn. The sinking feeling in his stomach had gotten so severe he actually felt nauseous – between the shaky arms, wobbling knees and nausea he decided he wasn't actually any better off than his partner.

While pulling out a cup he decided he was going to break down the impossible task before them into more manageable steps. The first step was giving his partner a glass of water and helping her (and himself) calm down for a minute or two. They'd deal with the rest together. Steadying his hand by pressing his opposite forearm against the cooler he managed to fill the cup without spilling it.

When he started to walk back she looked up at him for a split second. He didn't have time to see any detail on her face aside from the fact that it was redder than he had ever seen it. She was crying. He couldn't see the tears or hear the hurried breaths but, her body language gave it away. Her shoulders were bowed inward and her face was buried in her arms. In a hundred years she would probably never admit it but, the pressure had cracked her.

He slid down the wall next to her and held the cup in front of her folded arms. "Here." He pressed it against her hand so she wouldn't have to look up to find it.

Warm fingers slid beneath his and took the cup from his grasp. It sounded like she finished the cup in a single gulp, gasping lightly for air before putting it down on the floor.

He leaned away from her, pulling his left arm away from her side and pausing inquisitively. She caught on immediately, leaning forward just enough for him to slip his arm behind her.

"We can do this." He urged her as he snaked his arm around her shoulder and rested his hand on her forearm – as much for his own comfort as hers. The last time he felt this stressed he had to crash the internet to stop a file upload, even since then he kept repeating that mantra to himself that if he could take down the internet then surely he could do this but, it wasn't going to be that simple this time. Hundreds of lives, including two of his closest friends, were on the line and they had just over an hour to find a makeshift torpedo with nothing more than GPS signals.

At first she didn't say a thing. She leaned a bit further into him and grabbed his left wrist with her right hand. It always gave away how stressed she was – where she grabbed his arm in times like this. If she was spooked by Granger or heard Hetty while they were eating Oreos in Ops she would grab his forearm or elbow. The wrist was different for her; the last time she grabbed his wrist was when they were next to each other in Ops, staring at the photographic proof that Kensi was killed by insurgents in Afghanistan.

"How are we supposed to–" She interrupted herself by taking a deep breath. "Why us?"

When he pulled her in closer she lifted her face from her arms and when she turned, he knew he would never forget the look on her face. Her eyes were red and glistening, in the low light of the hall the orange and green flecks in her hazel eyes seemed to dominate her irises. When she closed her eyes and tilted her head down he realized how swollen her cheeks were from a distinct rubbing motion.

He smiled a little, more for the sake of reassurance than anything else. "Because no one else can. Because we're team Wolfram and Ununoctium, and we're the best."

* * *

"You want to hurry up over there? If I was them I'd be getting awful anxious by now." Sam whispered pointedly, using his phone as a flashlight as he pointed his gun to the compartment door.

"You could always –" Callen puffed. "Provide some of your invaluable assistance."

"And let them saunter in without a SEAL's greeting? Never."

"Always the gentleman." Callen heaved another bag of fertilizer to the precarious stack forming next to the shelving unit. When he turned he saw what he had been waiting for – the back of the hold. The fertilizer had been stacked four bags deep, he had probably hauled out just over a hundred bags and there was still at least three times that much left in the hold but, it was progress. "I'm going to have a look in here, alright?"

"Yeah, just don't get lost."

"If I get lost, it will be on purpose." Callen jibed as he stepped through the broken door.

Ammonium nitrate wasn't exactly pungent as one would expect (only the impurities actually have a smell) but, walking between a few hundred bags was a test of his constitution. In the hold the air was as thick as soup, saturated with the salt that was only mostly contained by the bags. He was dusted from head to toe with it and was starting to feel the effects of severe inhalation - it was getting harder to convince himself to gulp down air.

At first it took him a moment to realize why he couldn't see a fuel tank, the hold seemed to terminate at a U shaped bulkhead on the inside of the bow of the ship with no real indication of a fuel tank. Then it clicked that the bulkhead was the fuel tank. The lines were likely still concealed by the remaining bags but, all he needed to do was stop the fuel from being pumped. There was a soft, tell-tale whistling hopefully indicating a large valve of some description nearby but, he couldn't find it. He needed to get to the lowest point of the two tanks, the most reasonable place to put the pumps – or at the very least maintenance valves he could shut off.

Putting his phone/flashlight back in his pocket he picked up and flipped two bags at the bottom of the starboard side of the tank which were stacked strangely, revealing the fuel line but neither a pump nor a valve. With his hand he confirmed that the line was drawing fuel; there was a steady vibration indicative of running liquid.

The burning in his eyes and throat was almost unbearable now, and he realized if he didn't get out of the hold soon he probably wouldn't last long enough to stop the sub. Using his phone as a flashlight again he stepped over and around the bags to get back to the compartment where he left Sam.

"Your turn." He gulped the relatively clean air. "I can't - spend another second back there."

Ordinarily this would be when Sam made a jab but, some combination of his partner looking him in the eye and seeing how serious he was and the whole trapped-in-a-sub thing made him feel charitable.

"Yeah, uh, alright. You okay?"

"Yeah, it's just – my lungs."

Sam passed him with a hard slap on the shoulder, a sign of affection Callen was less than fond of. As his partner passed him he unholstered his gun and trained it on the door, holding his phone below the barrel.

"What am I looking for?" Sam asked.

"The starboard fuel line is out." He swallowed hard, wishing he had water. "Exposed, I mean. Find the valve." It had never hurt this much to talk before, running air through his trachea felt like sliding a knife along his skin. "Same with the port side tank. When you find them both - come get me - and we will hit them at the same time."

"Don't give 'em a chance to figure out what we're doing. I like it." The SEAL responded as he oriented himself to get into the hold. "I think I saw some water bottles on the wall, G."

"I'll have a look."

* * *

Eric rose slowly, untangling his arm and lifting himself away from her. "Whenever you're ready, I'll be doing what I can in there - and I could really use a Rockstar by my side."

With a parting rub on the back he got up, propping himself up against the wall before stepping around her and entering his old domain.

Ops always felt different without her. He would always beat her to work in the morning not only because he was a surfer and sunrise was just natural wake up time for him but, because he liked reminding himself of the time when he was the one man analyst team. True, he wasn't particularly happy about it back then – especially the forty hour weeks that often turned into ninety hour weeks but, he got to be the lord of the land, so to speak.

He had temporary help from time to time, when he was particularly overworked or when the time had come for him to use his banked vacation time before it expired at the end of the fiscal year. When she came it was different, she was someone handpicked by Hetty – like him – but for a role intimately involved in Hetty's more clandestine affairs.

At first it was a relief. She was quiet, knowledgeable, cute, and Hetty intended to let him off the secret keeping duty and pass on those tasks to her. Once she had the basics down it didn't take her long to start asserting herself, which started to make him anxious. He knew Hetty wouldn't just hire a replacement for him and work her ragged and keep disposing of analysts every three or four years – but, it started to feel like that was the case – like she was intended as his replacement.

When he reached the island he looked over what she had been programming, there were a few files she had left unmerged. One looked like it was intended to completely eliminate stationary signals (which in retrospect made more sense than color coding), the other appeared to be intended to emphasize movement paths, storing the past positions for moving signals and highlighting where they had come from periodically.

She programmed a lot like him, abbreviating methods structures she intended to fill out later so that she could keep laying out the program before circling back to fill in the missing pieces. Despite how similar their methods were, her abbreviations were almost completely indecipherable leaving him no option but to start from scratch in some areas. He had edited enough of her programs to understand the way she organized her code but, for the life of him he couldn't figure out where some of her variables were coming from.

While puzzling on the subject he couldn't help but remind himself how similar they were even back then. At first she wasn't terribly interested in chatting with him, in time she opened up and he grew quite fond of the idea of having a partner. He would work one angle while she tackled the other, and when one of them got stuck they'd switch. She never complained about a challenge, nor did she get caught up feeling sorry for herself when she screwed up and cost the team time and/or money.

If he was honest, she was everything he hadn't realized he was looking for in a partner. Then he started to get to know her a little less professionally, with some encouragement from Hetty and the example set by Deeks and Kensi. She liked chess, video games, cheesy movies and most of all trying new things. Beyond that, she was just easy to talk to. That was about the time when he realized how difficult it was going to be to keep things professional.

"Eric."

The voice came from his headset, which he had completely forgotten about. It snapped him out of his introspective trance and he realized that he had stopped coding entirely.

"Eric here. What can I do for you?"

"Eric, it's Granger. We can't reach the Darlington, they are running under radio silence until they reach port."

He had to supplant the instinct Nell had instilled in him to correct Granger about 'radio silence' referring to outgoing and not incoming radio communications. "Any ideas, sir?"

"Find that sub, Eric. Have Deeks and Kensi checked in?"

"No, I haven't heard from them since just after you left."

He groaned. "I'll try to get ahold of them, too."

"I'll have a brief ready in five."

"Good."

He hit the mute button on his headset so he could let out a loud sigh. Granger would eat him alive if all he had in five minutes was a loosely correlated trail of pings that *might* be the lost sub with Callen and Sam on it.

He figured he may as well start running, maybe then he could get far enough away fast enough to –

"Hey, Wolfram." A soft voice made his brain stop in its tracks.

He spun around to see Nell. It was plainly clear that she was still on the pink side of the pale-skin spectrum but, he also recognized her _no-nonsense _demeanor. It was a sight for sore eyes, to be sure.

"Hey, Nell. Ready?"

"Yeah," she exhaled. "I think so. Let's get to work."

* * *

When the first bullets tore through the room, Kensi and Deeks had no time to think, both agents reacted by diving to opposite ends of the room. Deeks took cover in a doorway to the corridor they had followed to get here and Kensi was trapped next to a shelf.

"Federal agents! Put down your weapons!" Kensi yelled. She had been listening closely and it was clear that only one kind of shot rang out, she hoped that meant a single gunman but, it was likely they were just smart enough to conceal their numbers by not all shooting into a small room at once.

"Just once I wish they'd take that advice." Deeks said sardonically as a half dozen bullets flew into the wall above him and to the right.

Instead of responding Kensi gestured to the other side of the storage room where the gunman had taken cover in a doorway on the far side. She couldn't quite tell by Deeks' reaction but, she hoped that he shared her suspicion about there being others. Kensi peeked over her cover to try and get a shot but, the gunman was waiting for her. Bullets sailed past where her head was when she ducked back into cover and she heard the sound of Deeks' pistol returning fire. The hail of bullets stopped abruptly and was replaced with a pained grunt and the sound of someone slumping to the ground.

Deeks seemed convinced that the situation was defused, he emerged from the doorway and looked in Kensi's direction briefly before turning to go investigate their assailant's condition.

"Deeks" She whispered harshly, gesturing to the ground. "Get down! I think there are more of them."

"Come on Kens, if there were more we'd know about it by now."

Kensi almost yelled after him but, instead she left her cover and kept an eye on their six. It was just a feeling – or at least that's what she was telling herself at that point. Deeks had already made his way to the gunman while she continued to check and recheck the entrances.

Deeks kicked the dropped gun away from the downed man's reach before addressing him. "Okay, unless you want a one way ticket to _Club Fed_, start talking."

In response the man just laughed. It wasn't sardonic or faked, he laughed as if what Deeks had demanded was the funniest thing he had ever heard. That was all Kensi needed to be sure there were going to be others, even if she couldn't hear anything. Still, she bit her tongue, trusting her partner since he feels safe enough in the building to bend down and grab the man's arm.

Deeks looked up at her, nonverbally asking for her assistance but, at first she was too distracted. After checking the doorway they had come through for the tenth time she relented and joined her partner in lifting the assailant to his feet. They carried him about thirty feet, supporting his shoulders with their own toward a doorway that hopefully led to an exit when Kensi finally heard what she had been dreading.

She dropped the man instantly while simultaneously unholstering her sidearm and spinning toward the sound. Between them and the door that they had came through to get there stood four men with covered faces and assault rifles. In a motion that had become purely reflex she dropped to the ground and took shelter behind a crate, that was when she heard Deeks.

At first she couldn't believe her own eyes. He stood behind the injured man, supporting him with an arm wrapped around the man's ribs and holding him slightly offset so that the arm pointing the gun at the downed man's head was unhindered. He had always seemed different since she got back from Afghanistan but, this wasn't the same Deeks she knew before.

"Let us go." He rumbled. The intruders had been utterly silent up until this point but, one spoke quickly in a language she didn't recognize.

In an instant the man levelled his rifle with Deeks' chest and before Kensi could tell him to duck, a shot reverberated through the room. Deeks sidestepped just in time, though the bullet hit Deeks' human shield in the side of the chest, killing him instantly.

The detective watched the man sink to the ground and cursed under his breath.

* * *

**Author's Note: So, there's a subtext here that I feel like I'm not conveying very well. Eric is hiding from the task at hand, and therefore their roles are reversed (she's doing more of a technical operator role whereas he is running logistics) on purpose because he is afraid that he can't handle it this time.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: This chapter is a bit short but, hopefully you'll forgive me :)**

* * *

Eric and Nell found themselves with something of a handle on the situation. There were over fifty trails from unique antennas headed north along the Los Angeles coast between the shipyard and the base that they had managed to isolate from the rest. They had no means of looking at GPS uplinks that took place before she started looking but, with a bit of help from Eric she did manage to finish the program that would store and occasionally overlay the route of moving GPS targets. The results weren't particularly helpful as almost everyone in the bay appeared to be headed vaguely north, as they could've guessed from the pings alone.

"There's still 46 moving signals, none are going anywhere near 40 nauts so, I can't really narrow it down further. How long until we can have a live satellite feed?" Nell asked. She was still situated at the island, her eyes constantly flicking between her tablet and the main screen.

"I'm talking to the office of SECNAV now." Eric responded. They both knew that not only was this an unusual request but, it was unlikely that there was an American satellite in position or anywhere near position be of use. "Oh, and Coastguard is en route, ETA seven minutes."

He could tell just by her body language that hearing about the coast guard gave her some relief. "I don't suppose this is enough of an emergency to pull the ban on sonar temporarily?"

"I'm sure we could get it approved in a few hours and deployed before the end of the week – not that it would help."

She caught his eye with hers before continuing in a hushed voice. "I was thinking more along the lines of find a sonar transponder, drop it in the bay and ask for approval later."

He couldn't help but smile back - she was starting to sound more and more like Hetty. "There might be one at the base, I'll look into it." By the time he finished his sentence Eric was already talking to the SECNAV office again, explaining the necessity of satellite surveillance in the Santa Monica Bay immediately.

Behind him Nell turned back to the big-screen, watching the illuminated trails and racking her brain for a way to distinguish them. They had already considered pairing the antennas with a fourth satellite in the GPS constellation, since the accuracy was so limited and the tidal swells were very significant. Since the sub has no reason at this point to be more than fifteen to thirty feet deep – barely beyond the reliable accuracy of the deployed GPS satellites to determine altitude, they would have a barely discernable noise to signal ratio to work with. As far as she could tell there wasn't much for her to do aside from keep an updated list of the current locations of everyone headed north in the Santa Monica Bay area.

"Hey Eric?"

"Hang on." He told his headset before looking up at her. Nell almost laughed at the fact that he just addressed the third highest ranking military official in the country with 'hang on'. "Yeah, Nell?"

"I'll talk to the base, you get us a satellite. I've done all I can for now with the GPS information."

* * *

The water was like nothing he had ever drank, he shuddered as cool liquid soothed his burning throat and eased the pain. He didn't realize that he had completely forgotten about guarding the door until he had already downed the entire bottle. No sooner had he turned to the door did he hear his partner call to him from the hold.

"G. I'm ready when you are."

"Yeah." Callen responded, taking another deep breath of the somewhat less foul air before returning to the hold. He met Sam at the gap he had made earlier but, there was no way he couldn't squeeze past. The SEAL was wrestling with a bag that had broken in half, trying to pick it up without spilling all of its contents.

"You're gonna have to move."

"Yeah, yeah, one sec." Sam lifted the bag and turned to him. "Get this out of here, would you?"

Callen slung the broken bag across his body and dropped it outside the hold, when it hit the ground a cloud of aerosolized salt joined the veritable fog that had already formed. When he looked back Sam had shuffled along the narrow gap between the fertilizer bags and the bulkhead to the second fuel line. Without waiting for instruction Callen took a left to the first fuel line and crouched over it.

"Ready?"

"Are we staying back here or do we wait for 'em up there?" Sam gestured to the compartment.

"We'll die back here."

"Yeah." The SEAL sighed. The pair didn't need to say anything else, they both turned their valve simultaneously.

Almost immediately the rattling to which they had become accustomed began to wane. They scrambled out of the hold and made their way back to their defensive position behind bulkheads near the compartment door. G almost tripped, too occupied watching the compartment door with his phone flashlight to keep an eye on his footing.

It wasn't getting any more painful to breathe, though he wasn't sure that was a good thing. "How long do we have?" He asked, referring to the amount of oxygen in the sub.

"Well, you'd want to be able to keep this thing submerged the whole trip, no matter when they lost their air. How long would it take this thing to get from Columbia to some unmonitored piece of California coast? 18 hours?"

"So if we're lucky we have 3?" Callen replied, pessimistically accounting for the number of people in the sub and the amount of time they had already been trapped.

"Something like that."

* * *

Deeks could only grumble defiantly as the kid behind him yet again poked his spine with the muzzle of his assault rifle.

"Get moving!" The kid barked.

"Maybe if you asked nicely, I'd be more cooperative." The kid answered with the butt of his rifle this time, mashing it between Marty's shoulder blades.

"I'll take that as a no." He mumbled under his breath. The van they were approaching was about what he had come to expect from a ragtag group of kidnappers, which made his mind wander. _It's times like this I miss the LAPD, expecting a certain type of van for my kidnapping is not a normal line of thought._

Two grey panel vans with both of the side doors open and waiting for them.

_Both engines on but only one driver waited, were they expecting more people?_

All he had to do was nod toward the vans and Kensi seemed to understand. This was a miscalculation – of course not one in their favor but, it should mean these kids are on edge.

"Aagh!" Deeks yelled, clutching his chest in what was probably his least thought through plan yet. Back with the LAPD fake heart attacks during an Op were his specialty.

"Deeks!" Kensi yelled, at least three of the kids barked in protest but, they didn't actually stop her from running to his side. "Deeks what the hell are you doing." She whispered through gritted teeth before switching to a loud and concerned tone. "Deeks! You have to take the pills they give you!"

"What the hell is wrong with him?" The accent was thick, to the point that it was almost incomprehensible when the boy yelled.

"It got caught in my throat so I coughed it up – and I was already late." He rolled onto his back and kicked his legs out. Stealthily, he checked the reactions of his captors while doing his best to stay in character. They were in a hurry, two of the five had broken off and headed for the vans while the remaining three exchanged frustrated glances. "It burns. It's never burned before."

As he expected, she perked up at the code word. Burn was their code word for stall, as in do as much as possible to prolong whatever is going on. In this case, Deeks saw that their captors were young, inexperienced and probably poorly trained – most likely rounded up a few days ago and there was clearly little cohesion in the group. With any luck stalling a bit longer would put the fractured two out of sight for when they made their move.

"Just breathe, Deeks. Your hand is your heart." She responded, starting to squeeze his hand rhythmically. With a nod she turned to face one of the captors and delivered her line perfectly. "He has Angina, I- I've never seen it flare like this."

"We're going." The shortest of the three insisted. He took a step forward and pushed Kensi roughly, taking a hand off his rifle to do so. "Get him up."

Kensi reacted like he had come to expect; she took the fall and almost flattened herself against his legs before pushing herself up and taking a swing at the kid.

Deeks abandoned the chest pain routine immediately and reached for the assailant's rifle, ripping it from his one handed grip almost the same time that Kensi landed a punch to his throat. Pulling the gun into his shoulder Deeks squeezed the trigger at the two closest to him, cutting them down before they had a chance to lift their rifles.

He turned his attention to the vans where he was expecting three people; the two who had left and the driver. Doing his best to cover the two vans meant he had no idea what Kensi was doing along the periphery of his vision.

Once a masked face emerged from the back of the lead van he opened fire, shooting him through the back end of the van after he had retreated back to cover. Deeks quickly looked over to Kensi, she had taken cover behind a crate and when she caught his eye she motioned for him to take cover too. He complied and took off running for cover behind Kensi's SUV.

A few shots rang out behind him so once he was out of sight he yelled. "You okay?"

"I'm good!" Came the immediate response.

* * *

"We have the satellite." Eric announced, tearing Nell from her fixation on the call with a sergeant at the base. It cost him a favor from an old friend in the Air Force but, Eric managed to get his hands on manual control for one of their satellites.

"Start with the fastest and closest, see how quickly you can narrow it down." She replied, gesturing to the screen behind her before turning her attention to her earpiece. "Get it in the water, sergeant. Let me know when you're ready."

When she took her finger off her earpiece and looked over at him he couldn't help but give her a wide eyed stare. "Wait, you actually got ahold of someone at the base?" It hadn't been more than five minutes since she started running down Hetty's list of contacts in Hueneme – usually even with her in the room getting anything done at Hueneme was a protracted process.

A cute little triumphant smile adorned his partner's face. "It's amazing how fast the old '300 lives and 2 billion dollars in military hardware are in jeopardy' line gets you talking to the right people."

They both turned their attention to the second screen where the satellite's view was being streamed from Eric's tablet. The positioning wasn't ideal, it was looking at the Bay from an oblique angle, as if the satellite was positioned over Camp Pendleton or Palomar.

"Is this the best angle we have?"

"It's the only satellite in the area, and there's no way they can reposition this one or any other in the span of two hours. It would take twice that long just to figure out how we need to move it."

"Do we even have the resolving power to examine boats in the Bay?"

"We don't need much, just to see whether there is something on the surface."

"Alright, well start with 33.944 at -118.552" Nell suggested.

"One sec." Eric replied, turning to the island. He typed up a storm sifting through the documentation for the satellite control software for about thirty seconds before leaning into the screen to read it.

"Eric." She prodded.

"One sec!" He yelled. After a moment he cooled off and replied more calmly. "Sorry. Just trying to figure out how to compensate for the oblique angle, we aren't lined up to the grid so I'm not convinced it will actually show us the coordinates I input."

"Try starting with something we know. Go to…" When she trailed off he turned to see her chewing her lip, a habit of hers when she was trying to recount something specific. "33.9745 at -118.4454."

"Uh, alright." Eric responded, the numbers were eastern LA but he wasn't quite sure where until he finished tapping in the coordinates. The screen shifted to a park he recognized from Marina Del Ray.

"That should show us the boathouse. We aren't off by much."

"Alright, I can correct that; should be able to get us within a few feet at least." He replied, sifting through the documentation again to see what the Air Force had on the subject.

"Let's try again. 33.9442 at -118.5520"

With a few lines of code he added a bias to the way the satellite was going to interpolate coordinates. He didn't have the time to do anything more than a linear approximation but, the field of view was wide enough that it should be sufficient. When he inputted her coordinates the screen shifted again, this time to the middle of the Bay. A small boat was visible at the top of the frame.

He walked up to the screen to examine the boat when he heard Nell behind him.

"Hey, Eric?"

"Yeah?"

"One of these signals is off course."

"Well, that helps us narrow it down."

"I'm not so sure, it looks like it's adrift. 33.9435 at -118.5489"

"What? Why would the sub be adrift?" Eric maneuvered the satellite's camera to focus on the area and they could only see calm ocean, there wasn't a trace of a drifting boat.

"Maybe they knocked out the motor."

For a moment they both breathed a sigh of relief. The Darlington was safe, at least for the time being. Then he had to open his big mouth.

"How long do they have?"

It was probably only a few seconds but, her silence before responding felt like an eternity.

"I don't know."

* * *

**Author's Note: Reviews make my day better :)**


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: Ahh lazy Saturday mornings, nothing to do but write and watch cartoons.**

* * *

She had been gripping the pistol stock so hard that her fingers had actually gone numb. It had always helped her stay calm under pressure, she could squeeze as hard as she wanted and her gun would never complain. When Deeks finally made his way behind her Sante-Fe she relaxed somewhat but, they weren't out of the woods yet.

There was no cover for her to try and flank them, all she had was a few old crates piled haphazardly in front of the boatyard that should provide adequate cover for now. That made her role cover fire, which she was happy to provide. After getting her bearing for a moment, recalling that the vans were straight down the driveway from her Sante-Fe which put them at her 11 o'clock. She popped up over the right side of her makeshift bunker and put a half dozen rounds in the back of the van.

"Go left!" She yelled.

When she ducked, Deeks made eye contact a moment before sliding along the SUV. A hail of bullets made her jump instinctively, the rag-tag band of kidnappers opened fire on the spot she had popped out of a moment ago. While she reloaded the back of her head was sprayed by bits of wood exploded outward from the pulverized containers. Fortunately, the bullets didn't stray closer than a couple yards from where she hid. Looking over to Deeks again she found him skirting along the fence she had parked in front of, completely out of sight.

She slipped over to the leftmost edge of her cover and popped up for a few more shots, their kidnappers had once again taken cover but, she could see two pairs of shoes under the front van. Concentrating, she put six bullets in the side of the van as close together as she could muster, just above one of the pairs of feet. With a few quick steps she was back behind cover, this time right around the hole they had blasted in her cover.

Bullets ripped through her cover again, right where she expected them too. The rifles had more stopping power than she was expecting, most of the bullets flew right through the crates and into the side of the building. Just when she looked over to Deeks a separate spray of bullets caught her by surprise.

She threw herself away from the crate barricade, landing hard on her shoulder and yet, she didn't even feel it. Grinding her teeth together to get her mind off the pain she inspected her other shoulder, which was already bloodied. Looking down she saw a streak of red across the side of her arm, the bullet had torn her skin apart on impact but, it looked like it only grazed her. In a moment she focused again and noticed that the gunfire had changed direction; they were firing at Deeks.

Her arm begged her not to but, she pushed herself up and leaned over the shattered crates. One of the gunmen was standing, the corner of his shoulder was visible past the cabin of the second van so she ignored her arm again, bringing her pistol to her eye and waiting for him to take a step forward. An instant later the man raised his arms and she was done waiting; she squeezed the trigger and put four bullets in him.

She took a moment, the man had fallen to the ground and wasn't moving but, there was another that she couldn't spot. By the front of the lead van she saw that the back of a parked car had been pulverized by gunfire, its windows shattered and the bodywork dotted with bullet holes. Her instincts told her to duck, hoping to get a glance at anything below the van but, when another barrage of bullets tore into the parked car she knew that if she didn't do something now, Deeks wasn't going to make it.

Since cover was scarce so she sprinted from the crates to the back of the second van. Their surroundings were mostly clear, a few pedestrians down the road had ducked behind another parked car; one was clearly on the phone with police. Her gaze flitted back to the vans when more bullets pounded Deeks' cover. She didn't stop to breathe when she reached the van, instead she pressed herself against the back corner and spun out in time to catch the second shooter.

He heard her but, he wasn't quick enough. By the time he started to turn toward her she had put three bullets in his chest, dropping him to the ground immediately.

"He's down!" She yelled, taking a step away from the van.

Deeks peeked up from behind the parked car, he looked unscathed from a distance but the first thought in her mind was to go over there and make sure. It wasn't until she stepped over some broken glass that she heard something behind her, she spun around just in time to see a masked man she hadn't seen before swing the butt of his rifle at her forehead. In the distance Deeks yelled something fuzzy and distant but, it was cut off by the impact.

* * *

"Alright." Eric announced to the nearly empty room nervously. "The Coast Guard has got the USCGC Halibut on site to investigate, they are in the south bay at the moment, ETA to our coordinates is about 3 minutes."

The announcement didn't come with the relief he had been hoping for. They knew where Sam and Callen were but, that would only ever be half the battle; now they had the significant task of bringing a sub to surface without giving them the chance to detonate their payload.

"What do they intend to do? It'll be underwater and it won't wash up on shore for hours - assuming it isn't deep enough to be pulled the opposite way with the rip tide." Nell replied, echoing the lack of enthusiasm he felt.

"The surface radar can detect submersibles up to twenty feet, and worst case we just rely on the GPS signal."

"Yeah." She muttered in response, by the looks of it still parsing through traffic cameras and surveillance in the general vicinity of Kensi and Deeks "I think I got something."

"Hit me."

She responded with a soft jab to the shoulder before continuing. It was a small gesture but, one he could always count on; Eric couldn't help but smile – when he turned to the screen he saw two vans making their way down a familiar road. "Looks like six of them; masks…" She paused. "Eric, they were ready for this."

"Yeah, they…" He trailed off, instinctually dialing for Hetty before he stopped himself. By the time he reached Granger's number, he was interrupted.

"Eric." Deeks almost yelled into the phone

"Yeah?" The technical operator replied.

"They followed us; they tried to – I don't know, kidnap us? Does that make sense?"

"Deeks what happened? Is everyone okay?"

"We're alright - Kensi took a hard hit to the head." He explained. She was already sitting up, despite the paramedic's urging her to lie down and relax. "One of the drivers, she never saw it coming."

"But, she's okay?" Eric asked after relaying the previous remark to Nell in the background.

"Yeah, she'll be fine. I'm uh – w- what happened to Callen and Sam?"

"They're still underwater but, we know where they are and the ship is dead in the water."

"Dead in the water? Is that a good thing?" The detective asked, instinctively looking toward the ocean.

"It's Callen and Sam."

"Yeah." He echoed, trying to hide the lump in his throat. "What do you need me to do?"

"Right now? Wait."

"Well that's the one thing I can't do right now Eric, tell me where to go and I'm there."

"What about Kensi?"

"She's going to the hospital, her arm needs stitches and she is going to have one hell of a concussion." He replied, shivering again at the memory of the sound of her head slapping the pavement only moments ago. "The last gunman is alive for the time being but, his leg is in pretty bad shape."

"What happened to his leg?"

"I put three rounds in it." Deeks replied flatly.

After a short silence Eric spoke up again. "If you come down here you'll have to talk to Granger, I don't know what you want me to say."

"Yeah. I know." Deeks replied before hanging up.

* * *

"I am going to be in so much trouble when this is over." Eric muttered pensively.

Nell had been glued to his side during the phone call but, he was too thrown off by the conversation to tap her into the call. When she stepped away he looked over to her again, ripping his eyes from the satellite display of where the sub was supposed to be.

"She is going to the hospital?"

"I… think so? I don't know, do those guys ever actually go to the hospital for anything less than a gunshot? All he mentioned was a concussion and some stitches." He let the silence ring out for a moment before continuing. "What's Kaleidoscope got on those vans?"

On cue she turned to the island where she had left her tablet. "Not much; no plates, no logos, even the color is hard to distinguish on the cameras." With a few taps she took over the primary screen, posting Kaleidoscope's output. The algorithm was parsing through video feeds but, it kept having to pause a feed to reexamine a frame. "The search is taking longer than usual because of all the light colored vans with obscured logos or license plates."

"Yeah, I've been meaning to take a stab at that, it's hard to get the algorithm to reference adjacent cameras to rule out vehic-" He started but, a call interrupted him.

"Mr. Beale?" A middle aged male's voice faded in after he accepted the call.

"That's me." Eric replied.

"Captain Erikson, Coast Guard. We're on site as requested."

"Okay, perfect. One sec." Eric replied, tapping Nell into the call and stepping toward the island. There was indeed a coast guard vessel on the satellite display, though with the delay it appeared to just be arriving. "You found the sub?"

"Yes, it's only a few feet down by the look of it."

"Is there anything you can do?"

"Well, yeah. We can recover submarines but…"

"But what?"

"It's not a lasso, we don't bring it up intact - it's a harpoon. It's been used to recover submarines but, we drag them up by a hull breach, sort of like a fish hook."

"Yeah, I know how a harpoon works. How… How accurate can you be?"

"Accurate?"

"Our agents are sealed in a compartment – or at least we think they are."

"We can see the sub, Mr. Beale. A foot? Maybe two if I'm having a bad day."

"Our agents are in the bow, do you have a clear shot at the aft end?"

"Yes. Is anyone else in the sub?"

Eric thought for a moment, forcing himself to ignore his stomach churning. It was a guess, but it was the same guess they'd make two hours from now except Callen and Sam will probably be suffocating. He couldn't tell the Captain, even if they agreed he wouldn't – this was the coast guard, they weren't military and they didn't sign up knowing they may have to kill a boat full of people someday. "I can't say, we lost contact when they sealed the hatch."

And with that he crossed his fingers and toes hoping Callen and Sam were in the cargo hold.

* * *

Something as loud as a gunshot rang out in the sub. The walls reverberated and a spray of water could be heard in the distance. It didn't take much knowledge of Arabic to recognize that their friends in the other compartment were also taken by surprise.

"What the hell was that?" Sam asked rhetorically. Before he could even start to try and figure out what was happening the sub pitched forward. "Hang on to something, G!" He yelled, grabbing hold of the side as the sub started to cartwheel.

"What the hell?" Callen cursed, crouching on the gate to the cargo hold. As the sub continued to rotate the stacks of fertilizer started to slide toward the front end, Callen had to sidestep one of the stacks he made as it slid toward the cargo hold.

"The wonder twins." Sam couldn't help but smile as he stepped along the cargo cage, following the shift in gravity. _Leave it to Eric and Nell to find an unpowered, unmarked sub somewhere along the coast of –_

A profound jerk shook him from his train of thought, he smacked against the wall but, managed to hold on to a shelf. After the sub had settled (though he could tell it was still being pulled) he found himself standing at the crook of the wall and the roof before the sub was jerked again. This time something heavy smashed against the door to the compartment they were in.

"So are they trying to kill us or save us?" Callen wheezed. With his phone long gone Sam could only assume his partner was still alright.

Sam felt something trickle past his hand. "Is that water?"

* * *

**Author's Note: I really wanted to have them just raise the sub like they would a sinking ship but, I don't think the Coast Guard could get a ship big enough (or equipped) to do so within a couple hours.**

**Like it? Hate it? Know how it could improve? Let me know with a review!**


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